


and you

by glassy_light



Series: all i want [2]
Category: My Own Private Idaho (1991)
Genre: Cannon compliant, Gen, M/M, again i wrote this months ago, aka back when i had brain cells, and wasn't being terrorized by the periodic table, i think???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23084344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glassy_light/pseuds/glassy_light
Relationships: Scott Favor/Mike Waters
Series: all i want [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659085
Kudos: 18





	and you

They did go back to that field, and in clear weather they stayed until night drew long shadows over the plains and odd rivers and the burning line of the road. They pulled the old motorcycle into the grass on the side of the highway and walked up the gentle, stoop-shouldered hill carpeted by dry prairie scrub. They sat in the sun until it cooled behind a far-off mountain. It was a good, clear day and the night was warmer than usual, late spring finally sticking to the ribs of winter. Things were going fine. There was enough money to eat, and though Scott had twice gone back to see his father in the odd handful of weeks since they last came, he always returned. The suits still sat crumpled over the back of a chair in their dusty shared room.

It was Scott who suggested the fire, who had the lighter, so of course Mike said yes. Of course he helped comb the bushes for dry sticks. Of course he curled up in the flickering orange as close as he could convince himself was excusable. Mike was staring at the fire, all lit up by it, like it was just the snapping of the flame and him in the thin dark. Scott understood in a vague way, the same you might understand the shift in your parent’s mood by how hard they slam the door, how much they stumble, that something might break. He was tense with the waiting. 

It was Scott who started the first crack, and when Mike saw it, limping, he decided that if Scott was going to take out the hammer he would too. If it was broken under both their hands, maybe it could be seen as a collaborative effort towards destruction instead of the rejection he could see on the horizon. It was self-preservation, he told himself.

“But you don’t pay me, and I love you.” Now he was the one twisting grass in his hands like he was twisting the rope of a noose. In the few moments of courage he had, looking down into Scott’s face he was met, same as always, by that unlocked door of a heart bleeding all over it. Scott held horribly still. When he spoke it broke everything to pieces.

“Yeah. You’re right.” He was stretched out in dirt by the fire, looking up into Mike’s face. And then, like it was easy, he sat up and leaned a burning mark all up and down Mike’s side, looking at the fire again like he had to take it apart and solve it, like it was the most incomprehensible thing in the dark. 

“Really?” Maybe he shouldn’t have questioned it, just let it exist the same was Scott let it, but he was lost and didn’t know if he was facing north or looking down or if this was really happening or if, from that little room at the back of his head, he was seeing only a small square of the patchwork. Missing some great big defining piece.

“I mean, yeah, Mike. You’re like family. Closer than that, I mean. You know.” He said it again like this was clean and not a mess. Scott was smiling into the fire, and it was sweet and warm. Mike was watching his face with the same devotional awe that Scott had fixed on the fire.

The door to that little burning candle of hope just above Mike’s heart swung open and the flame was swelling up, up. This was fine. Even if Scott didn’t get it, it would be fine. He tried to swallow down some of that confusion to sit open in the dark. Scott’s head was pressing against his temple. Mike tried to just exist in the dark and let himself be happy with what he had, however fleeting.

After a long time of sitting close, pressed side by side, watching the embers die down to little glowing eyes that winked in and out of sleep, Scott turned to press his nose against Mike’s ear and to kiss the side of his face. And maybe he actually meant it and understood it and everything good was in his hands. This roaring new hope in the dark, watery and thinning as the moon crept out from behind a bank of clouds, was frightening. 

Mike leaned into it too, and in the cool grass everything was warm skin and everything was the same as before, every stone and blade of grass and every dress shoe and suit jacket, but now Mike knew about it and maybe things were never desperate as he thought. It was good enough an idea to make him grin into Scott’s shoulder. He let himself have it.

The motorcycle wouldn’t start and Mike sat on that permanent concrete strip, right over the yellow line, and laughed for once at that face and the way Scott fought with the machine until it rumbled to life. When he pulled Mike to his feet, his hands were warm and they suddenly were reduced to screaming laughter and everything was so good. 

Dawn was just thawing in the sky when they rumbled back into town. Mike had his hands wrapped up in Scott's jacket and it was lazy and loose and content and not at all the desperate panic everything had been before. They didn’t stop, just kept going through town, waving to familiar faces working the curb. 


End file.
